


Insomniac

by whereismygarden



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, and some don't, etc etc - Freeform, in which some people get resurrected, probably too coherent for someone that sleep deprived, still getting into the fandom, traditionally abusing the tags sections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1504037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been four days since the defeat of Lord English, and Jade Harley still hasn't slept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insomniac

                You haven’t slept in four days. You aren’t sure if you can sleep. It’s a big change from your childhood, but you’re pretty certain godhood and resurrection have crudely overwritten your narcolepsy, not cured it. You glance down at your right hand: the gold ring that’s keeping your body in existence gleams dully. You fold your arms so you don’t have to look at it right at this moment and continue on your walk.

                The Condesce’s grounded ship is the only thing that feels safe to all of you, no matter that it’s ugly and cramped. It’s shelter, and full of charged power cells and computers and food. Also, there’s the bit that no one really talks about, which is that cramped, windowless compartments feel normal to all of you now. Except a few of the others, and they’ll go along to make the rest of you feel better.

                You still have a great number of Bec’s habits, and you’re restless with the need to check on things, to make a circuit of the ship. A head count. You’re not sleeping anyway. There’s a lot of starlight coming in through the rifts in the hull, enough that it’s easy to see where to step to be silent. You slide out of your red shoes anyway, and go in stocking feet.

                The sound of actual laughter startles you a few minutes into your patrol of the ship, and you peek around a bulkhead to see that Jane, Roxy, and Callie have set up a pair of couches (well, the equivalent of couches) from some officers’ lounge and are drinking sparkling grape juice and giggling over something. There’s a ring on Callie’s finger just like yours. You can’t see her too well, but she’s smiling, and looks happy. Roxy has her back to you, but Jane is smiling slightly at something she says, and you notice that her eyes have finally started to heal, and are only a little bloodshot.

                You move on, picking your way up and down stairs and looking into rooms that turn out to be empty. The ship feels hostile to you: you can feel breezes sneaking their way in and you want to step out into the wet meadows of Lofaf. Catch some frogs in the forest. Your beautiful planet is full of battle scars, but there’s another entire hemisphere. There must be some lonely island for you.

                You find John with Vriska, asleep in a pile of pillows, a tangle of brown and grey skin and black hair and blue cloth. Someone—well, John, obviously—has tied a silly red ribbon around the broken-off tip of one of Vriska’s horns. The end trails over her cheek. She’s going to kick his ass for that when she wakes up. Maybe. There’s a gold ring on her hand too. She’s been quiet since she took it.

                You’ve been making your way slowly uphill, as the ship is on the slightest bit of an incline. It came to rest partially on the shattered remains of a tower. The same tower that Aranea crushed you to death with, actually. You’re glad you were unconscious for that bit. Well, not really, since you had been KO’ed like a baby, not the most powerful doggy girl in all of paradox space. Embarrassing.

                Meenah sees you when you come to check in on her: she’s sitting alone in the dark, playing with one of her braids.

                “Yo Harley,” she says.

                “Hi Meenah.”

                “I’m really digging the corporeal exfinstance, girl,” she says. She’s definitely holding Aranea’s glasses in her other hand. You are not really sure how to proceed here. Say something goofy and somehow comforting like John, or something perceptive like Rose?

                “That’s a nice pun,” you decide. She lifts an eyebrow at you. You go ahead and leave. You certainly understand wanting to be alone in the dark.

                There’s the sound of a real party coming from one level up and some over. Meenah probably can’t hear it. You follow it to find a real couch, alchemized to fit additional people, facing a wide television. Rose and Kanaya are snuggled up in one corner, and Jake, Karkat, Tavros, and Terezi are each occupying a cushion to themselves. A large amount of snacks has been distributed throughout the party. Something that looks suspiciously like _Avatar_ is playing on the tv. Terezi still has her eyes wrapped, though at least she’s not using a rag soaked in purple blood. Tavros, Jake, and Karkat are genuinely interested in the movie; Rose and Kanaya are interested mostly in each other.

                You stand there for a second, and fold your arms so that the white swirl on the front of your robe doesn’t gleam in the darkness of the doorway.

                You’ve accounted for almost everyone.

                Dirk and Davesprite are sitting atop the ship, at the prow where Her Condescension used to stand when the navy became atmospheric. The old lady would be so mad to see the Striders putting their feet up ironically on folds of metal from hull breaches. You smile. They are talking, or maybe not talking. You don’t really want to hear.

                It’s probably a mark of a fuckwit personality and inability to understand personhood, but you don’t really want to talk to Davesprite. Or Dirk.

                You walk into the woods instead. You have seen everyone. They are all safe and some of them are even happy. You’ll be happy, after a little while. It will just take time. You’ve never been so good with that, not since you died the first time. It’s not a malleable thing for anyone, anymore. Sealing a universe, wrenching a timeline into the only possible iteration of events, was a tricky thing. It caused problems, like the unfixable death of every Time player. Including, most importantly, Lord English.

                You could go and join Callie and the other two. They would give you a glass of juice and let Roxy paint your nails.

                You take your gun out of your strife specibus without a second thought. You can hear frogs chirping all around you.

                There are lots of little lumps of earth and sticks and broken weaponry scattered everywhere, and you settle onto one knee and foot, pulling the butt of the rifle into your shoulder. You used to do this at high noon, Bec sniffing behind you, back home. You got really good at taking out little corners of things.

                Maybe tomorrow, Jake will come out with you. You can be sharpshooters together.

                For now, it’s just you and Bec.

                You can't sleep.


End file.
